Boekhandel Dominicanen (Netherlands) – This 800-year-old former Dominican church in Maastricht, Netherlands, was converted into a bookstore in 2006. Boekhandel Dominicanen hosts 140 literary events a year.

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Librairie Avant-Garde (Nanjing, China) – China's most beautiful bookstore, Librairie Avant-Garde in Nanjing, is housed in an underground parking lot that once served as a bomb shelter.

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John K. King Used & Rare Books (Detroit) – Housed in a former glove factory in Detroit, Michigan, John K. King Used & Rare Books has more than a million books organized into 900 categories.

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Books for Cooks (Melbourne, Australia) – Located in a 150-year-old former speakeasy, Books for Cooks in Melbourne, Australia, has 30,000 cookbooks in stock.

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Powell's City of Books (Portland, Oregon) – The world's largest used and new bookstore Powell's City of Books takes up a full city block in Portland, Oregon.

Cafebreria El Pendulo, Mexico City, Mexico – Breakfast on the weekend at bookstore and cafe Cafebreria El Pendulo in Mexico City is accompanied by live classical music.

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Stanfords Bookstore (London) – Stanfords Bookstore in the heart of Covent Garden in London is one of the world's finest travel book shops.

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1200 Bookshop (Guangzhou, China) – One of China's newest bookstores, 1200 Bookshop in Guangzhou is open 24 hours and offers a free stay to backpackers who apply by email in advance.

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Foyles flagship (London) – The century-old London bookseller Foyles' new flagship store is the largest bookshop to open in the UK this century and is housed in the former Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design. The stage where the Sex Pistols played their first gig in 1975 now houses the Foyles' children's department.

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Strand (New York) – Strand on Broadway is the only survivor of Manhattan's old "Book Row" -- a now-extinct district of bookstores.

Story highlights

From Maastricht to Melbourne, these itineraries make bookish travelers look stylish

China's coolest bookstores include one in a massive parking lot and another that offers free stays to backpackers

Shakespeare and Company in Paris hosts writers' residencies

Assouline bookstore in Venice is housed in an 18th-century palazzo

Someday there may be a generation of kids who think bookstores are fictional creations found only in novels that come in the mail.

Understandable, since many of the world's most beautiful independent bookstores have closed in recent years.

Not all of them are facing unhappy endings, however.

The brick-and-mortar survivors -- and brave newcomers -- have adapted to the Age of Amazon in their own ways, from opening 24 hours to undergoing spectacular design renovations or stocking books that aren't sold by the online giant.

Old or new, all with fascinating stories, the bookstores below serve as historic sites, sanctuaries, salons of culture and must-visit entries in any travel itinerary.

Shakespeare and Company (Paris)

Opened in 1951, this Paris Left Bank fixture looks like something straight out of a Hemingway book -- for good reason.

It's the spiritual successor and namesake of the first Shakespeare and Company, run by expat American bookseller Sylvia Beach and immortalized in Hemingway's memoir, "A Moveable Feast."

Beach closed her store in 1941, but in 1958 gave her blessing for another -- called Le Mistral -- to take the Shakespeare and Company name.

From its opening day, the second Shakespeare and Company has incorporated writers' residencies.

Current Shakespeare and Company owner Sylvia Whitman (pictured) was named after Sylvia Beach, owner of the first Shakespeare and Company.

Up to four scribes can spend the night in the store, with most staying a week to a month.

"My father always aspired to continue the same spirit Sylvia Beach created in her bookstore -- welcoming and hosting writers and sharing books through our reading room," Sylvia Whitman, daughter of founder George Whitman, tells CNN.

Located on the ground floor of the Bauer Hotel, a restored 18th-century palazzo, the newest boutique opened by luxury publisher Assouline is a study in beautiful interior design.

The store stocks many of the label's most expensive books, such as handcrafted volumes from its Ultimate Collection -- priced from $500 to $7,000 -- which range in subject matter from fashion and architecture to travel and lifestyle.

In June 2014, the century-old London bookseller moved into its spacious new digs -- the size of 13 tennis courts -- just a step away from its former home.

Foyles' new space has its own interesting history as the former Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design building, where Alexander McQueen and Stella McCartney once studied.

The stage where the Sex Pistols played their first gig in 1975 now houses the Foyles' children's department.

The store also launched a helpful in-store digital book search map that's automatically enabled on customers' smartphones when they connect to the store's Wi-Fi network -- the first of its kind in the country.

This large and airy store in the heart of London's Covent Garden should come with warnings of itchy feet. To gaze across the shelves in Stanfords -- one of the world's finest travel book shops -- is to consider a world of adventurous opportunities.

This is the place to go for anyone embarking on foolish treks into the Great Unknown.

No matter how unknown the Unknown is, Stanfords probably has not only a guidebook, but a fold-out street map detailing where to find the Unknown's best cocktails.

It's not just guidebooks and maps.

There's a comprehensive selection of travel writing, including many obscure texts.

For those looking for that little-known account of mountain prawn hunting in Bhutan, or crossing the Kalahari on a spoon, Stanfords is a safe bet.

When "Bel Canto" author Ann Patchett opened a bookstore in Nashville on a whim, with a partner she'd just met, she didn't expect to be become the unofficial spokesperson for independent bookstores struggling in Amazon's wake.

Patchett's efforts to publicize the store thrust it immediately into the literary spotlight when it opened, securing a New York Times front page story and a spot on "The Colbert Report."

Thanks to Patchett's connections, Parnassus -- an ancient Greek term for the world of poetry -- has no shortage of famous writers (David Sedaris, Jonathan Franzen and Michael Pollan among them) turning up to read from their latest books.

As befitting its location in the birthplace of country music, the store carries a thoughtfully curated music section.

"I get to recommend the books I like to read," Patchett tells CNN. "All my life I've loved telling people what books I think they'll love, now I have a lot more people to tell."

Hopefully, the Last Bookstore will never fulfill the prophecy of its name.

The popular warehouse-like store buys and sells new and used books and is home to a graphic novel shop and a record shop.

The store's columnar displays of books are so cool, they served as a backdrop for a fashion shoot in the latest issue of "Esquire."

The 100,000 books stacked in the "Labyrinth Above the Last Bookstore" section on the mezzanine level sell for a dollar each.

"The space we occupy was originally a bank, and there are still vaults on both floors of our store, but now they are full of books," says store manager Katie Orphan. "We generally have around 200,000 books in the store at any given time."